The old fiend was amazed at the newborn man, whom he was prohibited from understanding, and it was as if the spirit spoke words like these with his tongue long ago: ‘It seems to me that some new thing draws near to the world and {families of men} [MANKIND]; the Lord will be devising something clever; I am ignorant, because it is being kept secret.

Notes: [All]: This st. marks the beginning of a soliloquy by Lucifer which continues to the end of st. 43. It is based on the patristic idea that the Fall had given the devil juridical rights over the human race. The Incarnation was consequently regarded as a trap for the devil: the humanity of Jesus deceived Lucifer into thinking that he was a man like all others, whom he could dominate as he had all humans since the sin of Adam and Eve. The twofold danger for Lucifer in this assumption was that by unjustly attempting to punish a sinless man, he would lose his right to punish sinners, and that by attempting to devour the immortal Christ, he would be overcome and himself be consumed (see Aulén 1951, 47-55, and Wee 1974 on this topos). Paasche (1957, 535) and Schottmann (1973, 201) point out an analogue in an ON miracle story, three versions of which are printed in Mar 1871, 180-8; 473-81; 1147-9. The sources for the text are a miracle of S. Hugh recorded in Peter the Venerable’s De miraculis (Petrus Cluniacensis, cols 880-1) and a homily of Maximus of Turin (Maximus Taurinensis, Homilia XXXVII, cols 303-8). The analogue to Lucifer’s soliloquy comes from the homily of Maximus: Hverr er þessi maðr, er sva geck inn i heim þenna, at ek uissa eigi? Veit ek at hann er af konv fęddr ok upprvnninn, enn þat er mer blint, hvern veg hann er getinn ... Miøk er þessi lvtr vndarligr ok oheyðr fyrr i verolldu ‘Who is this man, who has come into the world in such a way that I did not know about it? I know that he is born of a woman and comes from her, but I am blind to how he was conceived ... This thing is very strange and until now unheard of in the world’ (Mar 1871, 186, 479). Cf. also the hymn Pange, lingua, gloriosi: Hoc opus nostrae salutis / ordo depoposcerat, / Multiformis proditoris / ars ut artem falleret... ‘Order demanded this work of our salvation, that artifice should bring down the artifice of the many-formed deceiver...’ (AH 2, 44) — [5] nökkur nýjung ‘some new thing’: Schottmann (1973, 201) suggests that this is a translation of Lucifer’s exclamation in the homily of Maximus cited above: angeli … annuntiant, quam non intelligo novitatem ‘the angels ... announce something new, which I do not understand’ (Maximus Taurinensis, Homilia XXXVII, col. 305). — [7] klókt ‘clever’: Cf. the same word
in 4/2 where it is used (disparagingly) of traditional skalds. — [7] dikta ‘to create, devise’: The word has many connotations, from the base meaning ‘compose, formulate in writing’ to ‘create, bring forth’, with specific reference to God’s act of creation. See ONP for examples. Here, the situation is ironic: Lucifer uses the word sarcastically with negative connotations, and he is unaware of the truth of his statement and its implications. The phrase dikta eitthvat klókt ‘devise something clever’ may cast light on the poet’s opinion of traditional skaldic poetry expressed in st. 4. — [8] eg em duldr, því að ferr af huldu ‘I am ignorant, because it is being kept secret’: Bb’s reading requires duldr to be understood without an object. Skj B and Skald prefer the reading of 622 and several other mss: duldr em ek þess, þat ferr af huldu ‘it is hidden from me [and] takes place in secret’.